© The Author(s). 2023 Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and non-commercial reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. ORIGINAL RESEARCH obligation) to take care of ourselves, of others, and of what we call the environment, nature. In this concern for the future of man and the world, it seems that ethics has a justification for its existence. Certainly, the world (nature, environment) is our home, our abode, and our birthplace. We shape it in our freedom. Playful with scientific and technical successes, intoxicated by his imagination and knowledge (power) but also passions, at the beginning of the 21st century, man came to a vague realization about his own freedom. Today, it is increasingly obvious that the natural and technical sciences are increasingly and violently suppressing the social-humanistic core. Man shows his power. It is necessary to recognize the calamity and devastation of man’s freedom, dignity, spirituality, and sociability—in simple terms, his psyche and personality. Nature is also being destroyed. That is why we need ethics. The modern man, more than the ones from the past, stands before the graves of the words that are rusted and become empty wrecks. Such is the case with the meaning If we look for an interpretation of the term ethics in any dictionary, we will always find an expert explanation of the Greek words “ethos” and “eethos.” It is usually said that those words have a multitude of meanings, even those that exclude each other in the content. Thus “ethos” (that is, “eethos”) means nature, abode, place of residence, homeland, but also a place of grazing for animals, a place of presence, domestication, essence, and vigilance. It is indicated that ethics relates to our (human) deepest values and the busyness of life, with something to do with our personality. Many questions are related to the topic of ethics. First and foremost is the one about human kindness. At the same time, man does not find goodness in the expansion of the knowledge he acquires but rather in the questions he asks himself. What does it mean to ask? Firstly, to enter a dialogue with the unknown. In a question, a person abandons his point of view and his attachment and goes somewhere else. If the question is the beginning of a genesis of philosophy, then the question about man is also the central question of ethics. Man is a being who wants to experience what is good, who wants to know the truth, and who wants to rejoice in the beautiful. He feels bound to the laws of the world and matter, but at the same time, in his freedom and spirit, he transcends himself and the world in which he resides. Man cannot be encompassed, limited, or expressed by anything. In his existence, he crosses the boundaries of mere individuality into the dimension of his pro-existence in which the human being should, as Hegel said, be viewed as an “individuum” but also as a “community.” Living simply means “being-with,” being “to-gether.” The root of our feeling that we are human beings among other people with whom (in our waking life—as Heraclitus said) we share a common world is recognizable in our call (an 1,2 Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Corresponding Author: Mikolaj Martinjak, Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia, Phone: +385 12094440, e-mail: mikolaj.martinjak@ffrz.unizg.hr How to cite this article: Koprek I, Martinjak M. Ethics and Ecology. Sci Arts Relig 2023;2(3–4):154–160. Source of support: Nil Conflict of interest: None Ethics and Ecology Ivan Koprek 1 , Mikolaj Martinjak 2 A BSTRACT Ethics as a “practical philosophy” should judge not only human actions toward their “neighbors” but also toward the wholeness of all living beings and the entirety of the world (cosmos)—nature—whose regeneration abilities are limited. As an important interlocutor in the scientific and social debate on ecology, philosophy (especially ethics) should clarify and reconcile the tensions between natural determinism and human freedom that shape collective (economic and political) life. In that sense, this article advocates moderate biocentrism, which emphasizes that all living and nonliving organisms (including nature) are, in an analogous sense, objective goals or goals in themselves. As means–ends in themselves, they are never the exclusive means for man’s subjective goals. Therefore, the idea of moral order in the realm of goals is not and must not be limited only to man but should also include nature—if not as a subject, then certainly as an object of the moral order. Keywords: Determinism, Ecology, Ethics, Human activity, Human freedom, Moderate biocentrism, Nature, Philosophy. Science, Art and Religion (2023): 10.5005/jp-journals-11005-0058